By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society The cheerful flowers of our native Common Blue Violet are one of the most anticipated signs of spring, bringing joy to both gardeners and pollinators alike. Blooming from March to June, with occasional rebloom in fall, our Common Blue Violet reaches only 3 – 8” tall with…

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society Plantain-leaved Pussytoes is one of our most charming perennial groundcovers and begins blooming this month with fuzzy white, tufted flower heads that resemble the toes or paws of kittens. Other names for this appealing groundcover are Pussytoes, Everlasting, Mouse Ears, Ladies’ Tobacco, and even Dog Toes. Who…

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society Chapter One of the earliest signs of spring is the bloom of the Round-lobed Hepatica or Liverleaf, Hepatica americana. The lovely small flowers of this woodland wildflower look fragile but this hardy perennial blooms in the face of winter often as early as February. An array of…

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society Our February Plant of the Month, American Hazelnut or Filbert, Corylus americana, is one of our earliest blooming native shrubs, a true harbinger of spring often flaunting its flowers as early as February. As a member of the Birch (Betulaceae) family, American Hazelnut is monoecious, meaning it…

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society Ebony Spleenwort is a charming small, evergreen fern that grows in dense tufts with dark green narrow fronds with a distinctive, wiry dark reddish brown shiny main stem (stipe). In fact, it gets its common name, Ebony, from this very distinctive dark shiny stipe. The narrow fronds…

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society Common Tree-clubmoss—often called Princess Pine, Common Ground-pine, or Flat-branched Tree-clubmoss—is appropriately named, as each plant looks like a miniature pine tree and a colony resembles a miniature forest. Club mosses are ancient plants and evolved over 400 million years ago and reproduce by spores produced in “club-like”…

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society As lingering fall leaves drop in November, the bark and architecture of American Hornbeam, the November Plant of the Month, take center stage showcasing its winter beauty. American Hornbeam is particularly elegant at this time of year. It is known by many common names including Ironwood, American…

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society One of the earliest and most reliable trees for fall color is our gorgeous Black Gum, Nyssa sylvatica. This native deciduous tree reliably ignites into fiery shades of scarlet and occasionally red, orange, even purple in the fall, often by late September. Not only does it color…

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society Great Blue Lobelia is a lovely late-blooming perennial in the Bellflower family that flaunts tall blue spires of flowers for weeks on end in the late summer-fall. Also called Blue Cardinal Flower or just Great Lobelia, this relative of the well-known red Cardinal Flower is native to…

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society One of my all-time favorite pollinator plants, Short-toothed Mountain-mint, has just recently been added to the flora of the Northern Neck and I am thrilled to include it as the July Plant of the Month. Several large populations of this incredible pollinator powerhouse were recently discovered near…

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society American Elderberry is a common, deciduous shrub that lights up our landscape from mid-May through June with huge and profuse clusters of white flowers that literally form a lacy veil over the shrub. Each flower is only about ¼” across but is held in large, flat-topped or…